The present invention relates generally to telecommunications services and more particularly to the transmission of a message to a telephone station.
Various telecommunications services require messages to be transmitted to telephone stations. One example of such a service is a caller identification service, which transmits information about a calling party to a called telephone station. Another example of such a service is described U.S. Pat. No. 6,219,414 and is commercially available from Ameritech under the name “Talking Call Waiting.” This service provides information, in the form of an audible message, to a called party that is engaged in a first call to enable them to decide whether or not they want to put the first call on hold and accept a second call. In this example, the message comprises an audible tone, which indicates that the second call is waiting, and audible information about the caller, preferably the caller's name. To facilitate the delivery of the message to the called party, a telecommunications system will typically perform a series of call set-up or configuration steps that enable the message to be transmitted to the called party's telephone station. For example, once it has been determined that the message is to be transmitted to the called telephone station, a communication channel must be established between the network element that generates the message and the called telephone station so that the message can be transmitted from the network element to the called telephone station.
Both the generation of the message and the setup of the connection that enables the transmission of the message to the called telephone station take time to complete, and the time needed to complete these actions can vary depending upon the physical location of the called telephone station and the network element that is generating the message. Any variance in the generation of the message or the setup of the transmission connection can adversely affect the delivery of the message to the called party, as both the generation of the message and the setup for the transmission of the message must be synchronized to effectively deliver the message to the called party. If the message is generated before the setup is complete, the message can be cut off.
A system and method for transmitting a message to a telephone station that overcome these timing issues are needed.